Land survey for pipeline to get under way in Ohio

DEFIANCE - Owners of about 400 pieces of property in Ohio will receive notices beginning this week that their land will be surveyed for construction of a 400-mile natural gas pipeline.

Joe Martucci, a spokesman for ANR Pipeline, one of the partners in the project, said the consortium must survey 75 feet on either side of the pipeline route under its permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He said state law allows the surveys to be conducted without landowner permission.

Mr. Martucci said survey teams will begin at two points, near Defiance and Ashland, Ohio, and work their way east. Survey work for the Pennsylvania sections of the project are to begin next month.

Hundreds of affected landowners have objected to the $678 million pipeline, saying it is not needed and will harm cropland. Construction of the pipeline, which is to run from Defiance through Henry, Wood, Seneca, and Huron counties to Leidy, Pa., is scheduled to begin in spring, 2002.